Cocktail Confessions

This is too brilliant and makes my first entry in the WTF category. 

An Ohio woman allegedly told police that stress over Michael Jackson’s death led her to commit arson in the Authorities say Amanda Jarvis set fire to the women’s restroom at Bootleggers Bar in Lorain.  The fire, which was burning in a trash can, broke out just after 1 a.m. Sunday, according to reports.

"Wanna reenact my Pepsi commercial?"

A bartender told police that Jarvis came running out of the bathroom to tell him about the blaze.

Surveillance camera footage helped lead police to Jarvis, who was arrested.

“I felt stressed because my apartment had recently caught on fire, and because of the death of Michael Jackson,” she allegedly told authorities when asked why she’d set the blaze.

Jarvis appeared intoxicated at the time of her arrest and her speech was slurred. She is awaiting an initial court appearance.

Really, so can I blame my shop lifting ideas over my bereavement of Farah?  Can I take a joyride in a strangers vehicle because I’m distraught over the passing of Billy Mayes?  What the hell is wrong with people?  I’m living in Bizarro world.

Upgraded Blubrry PowerPress plugin from v0.8.2 to new version v0.8.3.  Automatic update from Wordpress dashboard.  Compatible with Wordpress 2.8.1.

The Blubrry PowerPress Podcast Plugin has all of the essential features needed to provide podcasting support in a Wordpress blog.

The Blubrry PowerPress interface allows you to easily add/modify/remove podcast episodes from blog posts and includes a simple on-line media player, iTunes compatible RSS feed tags, ability to upload cover art images, ping iTunes, detect media size, detect time duration (mp3’s only) and add 3rd party media statistics.

File Types detected: mp3, m4a, ogg, wma, ra, mp4a, m4v, mp4v, mpg, asf, avi, wmv, flv, swf, mov, divx, 3gp, midi, wav, aa, pdf, torrent.

Documentation for PowerPress can be found here.

Also updated and activated Askimet v2.2.4anti-spam for Wordpress.

There is also a new Count Per Day update, v2.1 (from v2.0), but currently deactivated.  Lots of patches/upgrades lately due to newest Wordpress release, 2.8.1beta.

Sunday was a big day for my spare bedroom.  See, the spare bedroom has turned into my ‘office’ over the years, (I feel funny saying that it sounds if there are major business making decisions being made there that I have a hand in steering my future….there’s not.) and an overall dumping ground for unopened mail, excess inventory for Paw Pantry, read comic books, and Rock Band peripherals.  It definitely has not gained the status of ‘man cave’, as 1) it’s way too hot in the summer, 2) it has no cable television in it, and 3) anymore than 2 people in would make it feel like an over crowded elevator.

Trying to do some spring cleaning in the late of June, I took it upon myself to clean up and tentatively organize most of the mess that I’m primarily responsible for (although my wife is partially responsible for a little bit of the crap in there).  I cranked up the iTunes to a dance channel I like, and then proceeded to spend the next couple of hours deciding on what to keep and what to throw away.

CC broadcast studio. SAG free.

It is a very liberating feeling to throw away catalogs and magazines that are still in their 2005 mail wrapping sleeves, old receipts I have no idea what they are for, various pieces of junk mail, and other odd and ends that somewhat seemed important in a previous era.  When it was all said and done, and after breaking a pretty good sweat, I was able to fill about a third of our recycle bin and about a quarter of my trash can as well.  There is actually free space on the fold up card table inside, and a great place to hold future interviews.  Now I just need to ditch one obsolete computer, do a vacuum job, and dust, and voila….I should have a new room!

Anyway, don’t let this picture fool you.  I did a ton of cleaning, it just is not apparent from this snapshot..  This just so happens to be by PC, the home of CC, my WoW appliance and Facebook interface.  It could use a little cleaning itself as well, perhaps when it cools down some more or I get a bit more inspiration to clean.

The last two Friday’s in a row, (and could tonight be the third?), I have found myself at a local water hole in RSM known as Amazing Grapes.  It’s a nice little place if you’re into wine tastings, but my friends and I discovered they have a nice little hand crafted brew section with a few fancy imports and domestics.

Best Extra Stout

Personally, I’m not really a wine person, or at least a pretentious wine snob who swirls a glass and stares at the ‘legs’ as they drizzle slowly downward as they cling to the glass.  I like a nice Pinot Grigio, an occasional Italian red, or even a mellow merlot.  But I don’t know enough to tell you the difference between a $8.99 bottle and a $49 bottle.  I do like my champagne though, and can tell a cheap bottle from a more mainstream and classy one.

But that’s not why my friends Jon, Joe, Chip, Ryan, Paul, and I go there.  No, like I said we can get a really good microbrew in this non-bar setting without drunken a-holes around, or a myriad of plasma flat panels all competing to grab your ear with the various sports highlights and a stereo system that only plays Brown Eyed Girl ad-nauseum.

One beer that I have discovered there is a stout from an Australian brewer, Coopers.  It’s called ‘Best Extra Stout’ and clocks in at 6.3% alc/vol.  It’s has a very robust and hearty flavor, but especially very smooth and dare I say creamy.  I enjoy stouts a lot, from Guinness to the various oatmeal varietals as well, and I must say this Cooper’s is one of my news favorites.  Has a very distinct smokey yet chocolaty taste.

If you get a chance, check it out.

First of all, I’d like to thank all of my friends who have so far visited my page and took the time to download or listen to my first trial episode and provide either words of encouragment and some helpful feedback.  Personally, I’ve been both excited and frustrated with this experience. 

The positive part is the feeling that I am indeed learning something new, and get to enjoy messing around with the technology and flexing a little bit more of my creativity.  For those that think I have ADHD, well maybe I do, and this is just another outlet for my sometimes idle mind.  I do have a lot of great friends and stories and I only get more excited when I think of future episodes when one of you is sitting across from me on the mic, sharing a beer, and just shooting the breeze.

The frustrating parts is the amount of work leading up to this and the continual tweak and modifications.  I really didn’t realize how much goes into a podcast, let alone oen that garners others people interest and word of mouth.  If you think about it, there are many components in the production of a blog: style, hosting services, various software applications, plug-ins, editing, feeds, post production, transfer and exportings of files, ID tagging, audio conversions, etc.  It can be really difficult when you discover than ‘current’ manuals are hard to find, and many things that appear to be compatible actually aren’t. 

You have a vision of how things are supposed to look and work on paper or in your head, but in actuality it doesn’t always pan out.  I’ve run across obsolete plug-ins, technical hurdles, vague or non-exsitant instructions, false data capturing and statistics, and more passwords and logins than I can shake a stick at.  To illustrate, despite how ‘easy’ various white papers say how easy it is to podcast, here are the various components I work with just to get this far:  GoDaddy as my hosting site, Wordpress as my main blogging software, Audacity as my audio capture and editing device, FeedBurner along with Google accounts to provide an enhanced RSS feed, BluBrry as an embedded flash player and download tool.  That doesn’t even incorporate the various plug-ins: wordpress statististics for data capture, Social to share posts on social networking sites, and a few others.  Each time you install one, you need to make sure that it not only looks right on teh main page, but that it is compatible and actually works as described.  Easier said than done.  There were plenty of installs, just to rip it back out and look for a comparable alternative and I’m sure there will be more of that in the future as well. 

But for now, it looks as if I have the main gist of everything working properly.  The last two major hurdles, which so far appear to be the most daunting to date is the ability to learn MP3 ID tagging, not just for Windows (that’s easy), but the scripting/coding for iTunes.  Once that is done, then it will be submitting the appropriate feed to both Microsoft Zune and iTunes to have them be approved and available for everyone to subscribe from there.  The good news is I did a prelim test last night with iTunes, and it did indeed detect my feed and registered my episode (sans artwork and proper tags, but it is there in its raw format).

So on to the other stuff:  I added the first episode to the ‘Podcast‘ page.  This is where all epsiodes will reside via a download link without all the show notes, links, pictures, etc.  Think of it as the one-stop-shop for past episodes.  I also added another page, ‘Patrons‘  in which over time will be populated with a few lines of guest biographies and headshot pictures….just so you can put a face/name to the voices you may hear.

Whew, that was a mouthful.  Now hopefully from here on out, I’ll get to the fun stuff and leave the majority of this techo crap and geek speak behind. 

Now, let’s look forward to the next episode, so stock the fridge with some cold ones.

This is the first ‘official’ episode of Cocktail Confessions.  (Will be added to the ‘Podcast Page’ later)

After I added some into bumper music, I tried to re-level the sound to take out some ‘pops’ and practive yet another fade out up to the point where I begin talking.  I really need to print out an Audcaity manual.  I also to wrote down time stamps for parts of the show to include in the notes listed below.  I then added links to the various notes as well to give more info where applicable.

I think the hardest thing right now to conquer is the ‘feed’ process.  iTunes uses a differing tagging method that traditional MP3 podcasts as well as how to include ‘coverart’ for the podcast.  In uploading the raw MP3 to my hosting file, for this episode I didn’t get much into the tagging for either Zune or iTunes.  So I guess you can call this a ‘raw’ MP3 export.  (I promise, I won’t always be this technical, but I’m doing this because I know others are in the same boat as I, and want to learn this as well.)  Anyway, you should take the raw MP3, then ‘IDTAG’ it before uploading to yoru hosting server, then finally hit ‘publish’ and make sure the appropriate feeds pick up on it.  Blah, blah, blah….. 

Episode 1 - Show notes:

0:23  Welcome to the show and discuss format.

2:25  Email and welcome critique’s.  Write me at: cocktails1@hotmail.com

3:21  Intro music is ‘Cancion Del Mariachi’ on the Desperado sountrack.  Performed by Los Lobos and Antonio Banderas.

3:43  Negra Modelo beer is discussed.

4:28  Grupo Modelo Brewery.

4:50  Story on how I discovered Negra Modelo.

6:58  The Hangover

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.9MB)

Added yet another Plug-in, Sociable v3.3.1,  that lets you customize a an array of social bookmarking sites at the end of each post.  Out of the 99 available social sites, I chose the main ones that are of the most relevance for most blogging efforts.

Easy install and configuration.  Using all default settings, no custom images or CSS stylistic theme mods.

So if you like a particular post/entry you see here and want to share on a social networking site, then by all means, just click the appropriate chiclet at the bottom of the post.  Thanks!

Edit: Hmm…Well, it’s working and displaying in ‘preview’ mode, but doesn’t seem active in ‘live’ modes.  Will check out tomorrow.  Maybe a synchronization issue with Wordpress & GoDaddy hosting?

Edit #2 (10:00pm):  Well, it looks like it’s now working.  Seems to be a true/false error condition in the ‘enclosure’ section of cutsom settings.  Figured that out by accident.

Behringer all-in-one kit

When I first got the idea of wanting to do a podcast while chatting with my friend Brian and goofing around with yet another new hobby, a few questions arose.  Sure there was the whole ‘What the hell random subject am I gonna rant on about?’ but also I had to think about the hardware I was going to use to create said verbal tangents.

Since I knew nothing about mixers, condenser microphones, editing/production software, let alone hosting sites, feeds, RSS and the like, I decided to begin my research on amateur, yet affordable ’starter’ equipment.  I came to grips early on that I knew this whole experiment was to be a hobby and not a career, so I needed to find something preferably on the cheaper end of the money spectrum without sacrificing quality and a name brand I could trust.  The problem was, I didn’t know where to begin or what was even out there.

Fortunately after some brief Google searches and a look at various ‘podcasting’ sites as well as Amazon.com, I came across an all in one kit by Behringer. Although the the pictured USB Podcasting Kit lists for $149, you can easily find it for $99 online if you shop around a bit.  In reading various reviews on this product and those of the competitors, it seemed to me that this kit had more going for it with solid reviews than many of the others, so I chose to purchase this one from an Amazon affiliate.

The kit includes:

• A high-resolution 2 In / 2 Out USB audio interface with plug-and-play for Windows XP and Mac OS X operating systems.
• A studio-class 5-input 2-bus mixer with a premium mic preamp and 2-band “British EQ”. (model: Xenyx 502)
• A Dynamic broadcast-style microphone with a 2-stage pop filter.
• High performance studio headphones with ultra-wide frequency response.
• A tripod microphone stand, XLR mic cable, and 2 stereo RCA cables.
• Podifier, Juice, PodNova, and Golden Ear podcasting software.
• Kristal Audio Engine multi-track sequencer and Audacity audio editor software.

Okay a few additional notes on the items within the box.  First, the microphone, cables, mixer, stand and preamp are totally worth the $100 you have to spend.  However, that being said, I have a few ‘issues’ with the rest that was included.  Audacity, out of the box is an older version….sure it’ll work, but don’t bother installing this one at all…go straight out to the web and downloadthe newest version (it’s free anyway) and you’ll be much happier.  Second, the “How to Podcast” quick sheet manual that comes pre-packaged kinda sucks.  Assuming you are not a techie at all, this sheet seems to be written by someone in Jr. High detention and is all of two pages long and very vague.  Lastly, the other software included may indeed be nice, but they are all on one disc and the on-disc manuals are pretty lack-luster as well.  Yeah, you can get by with them, but clearly this is just a bundle package they threw some software in to help sell and make more attractive to the consumer, but I’m not a fan of vague manuals or non-descript software that you have no idea on how it’s going to change your PC once loaded.

So for me, it’s all about the hardware and this is a perfect starting kit for the solo hobbyist.  I suppose if I get a bit advanced and require an additional mic for a second guest, I may go up to the next mixing board model, the Xenyx 802  (8 input, 2 bus) that will allow for two plug-in mics.  However, I’m not too worried as I have done a few tests in my ’studio’ (read: spare bedroom), and the single mic can pick up two or more voices just fine anywhere in the room.  Reserve the headphones for the host and mixer, as your interviewee really doesn’t need it.

Just a quick cleanup and addition.

Added a new link: The Daily Woof, a blog I also author and maintain over at Blogger.com.  I’m an animal lover, especially dogs, so I have a news website dedicated to all things canine.  There are product reviews, interviews, news stories from around the world, poems, pictures, and a bit humor as well.  Even though it’s called The ‘Daily’ Woof, sometimes it’s hard for me to always update it on a regular basis.  Anyway, if you like dogs or know someone who does, send them over there and spread the word.  No such bad thing as not enough word of mouth.

Added a banner link (right sidebar) to Podcastfaq.com, a fairly easily navigatable site to help answer basic Podcasting questions.  Instructs users on the basics, including how to find other podcasts, how to promote your podcast, legal issues you may encounter, a glossary on common terms and podcasting jargon, and a portal to get to the Blubrry support forums.  It has some useful information for newbies, and some decent source links, but again, a high level overview on podcasting.

Added ‘Podcast’ page at the top navigation toolbar.  Not only will individual podcasts be published in entries here, but I’ll treat that page as a podcast archive repository, where download links will be available, in order, of all my episodes.

Podcast Solutions, 2nd ed

Returned ‘Wordpress for Dummies’ back to Borders yesterday.  No questions asked.  Sadly there seems to be quite a deficit on really good step-by-step, hands-on instructional books on both podcasting and Wordpress.  Go ahead, scan Amazon.com and tell me I’m lying.  The ‘few’ books you can find are somewhat pricey, and really don’t rate well.  The most promising one I could find was Podcast Solution, 2nd ed. by Dan Klass and Michael Geoghagan, but not sure I’ll get it.  In addition to audio podcasting, it devotes quite a bit to video casting as well.  Although it is a second edition, the publish date was November of 2007, so already it’s more than a year and a half behind the current time and technology.

As I stated in the previous post I was experiencing some issues with the ‘Count per Day’ plugin, so I deactivated and removed the previous version (1.5.1) altogether and deleted it from the root directory.  I then reinstalled a fresh v2.0 version that was recently updated, and it still didn’t work.  Still got the same line code error at line 947, so hopefully this will be made know to the author and a patch or fix will be issued soon.

Blubrry PodPress template

I also added and began to configure PowerPress by Blubrry v0.8.2 (pictured above) and it seems very robust.  Robust enough where I ended up replacing (that is, deactivating) Audio-Player v2.06b.  Once installed it seems much more powerful and flexible than Audio-Player.  Not only does it install it’s own player within the post, it also adds a download link which I could’nt display with Audio-Player (no more messing with [audio syntax enclosures that didn't work]. 

It’s also very iTunes friendly and if it wasn’t for my firewalll at work right now, I could complete the configuration (I’ll finish that later) and test.  I can add artwork (cover art) for my podcast to display on iTunes and select categories, ping iTunes, and much more.  Some of the functionality is only available if you activate a Blubrry account (free).  It does auto-detection of files and supports various media extensions.  The configuration options are the deepest and most intuitive I’ve seen yet, so I’ll also have to print the documenation out later and keep.  Looks like a keeper/